Wednesday, March 28, 2012

By now, you've no doubt heard of Azealia Banks and Iggy Azalea. You may have also heard that they are beefing. So let's break down this beef and work it out.

Who's Who:
Iggy Azalea is the tall white Australian one. She has an insane body and she is currently dating A$AP Rocky (and even has "Live Love A$AP" tattooed on her fingers). She dropped her first mixtape, "Ignorant Art" last year and was the first woman ever featured in XXL's sort-of-coveted, sort-of-prestigious "Freshman Class."* She's gotten co-signs from a handful of southern rappers including Pusha T, YG, and T.I.

Azealia Banks is a New Yorker who went to LaGuardia high school (which is the one from Fame), who burst onto the scene with her song "212" last fall. She has also gotten plenty of press (GQ, NYMag, etc), and became the fashion world's latest obsession when Karl Lagerfeld and Nicola Formichetti hired her to perform at Fashion Week in February. She's gotten love from Kanye and other people, but... Kanye.

The Beef, round one:
Azealia fired shots at Iggy on twitter saying that Iggy shouldn't have made the Freshman Class – specifically because Iggy refers to herself as a "slave master" in one of her songs, which I'm not even going to step to because honestly that's just a no brainer. You're a white. female. rapper. Iggy. It's not okay, and you had to know it was gonna be an issue. NOW that being said... Iggy was voted into the Freshman Class by the readers of XXL, so in theory, Azealia had the very same chance to get that last spot. AND it should be noted that Azealia got a profile piece in the front of that same issue of XXL with just about the same word count as Iggy's write up. Azealia went on to tweet that she is not "anti white girl," but she is "pro black girl." Iggy didn't really respond, just tweeted some generally happy things about being excited to be on the list and get her cover spot.

Round 2:
At the end of February, T.I. signed Iggy to his Grand Hustle Records label. The two were interviewed by DJ Drama who quickly brought up the beef with Azealia, and Iggy kept a cool head, saying that she worked hard for her own achievements, and that she wished Azealia would have been happy to see a woman on the list. T.I. defended Iggy, but then he got a little mean, saying that Azealia should hope she sucks enough to get shelved so that she can make the cover next year. Way harsh, Tai. Azealia hopped on the twitter bird once again and tweeted: "LMFAOO how u a grown man commenting on what's going on between two girls. Come on son. Stop it." ... which was a deeply terrible tweet on a lot of levels, primarily the "you're a big grown man and we're just two small girls with silly little girl problems that shouldn't matter to a big man like you" level.

Round 3:A$AP Rocky was interviewed by a UK blog called Punchbowl, and eventually got around to the Azealia vs. Iggy issue, stepping to Iggy's defense. First of all he says that Azealia in fact used to date one of the A$AP Mob, A$AP AV, which is sort of a weird element to this whole thing... but then he says that Azealia is being petty, and that Iggy is not racist ("TRUST ME"). Azealia doesn't appear to have responded to this interview as of yet.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
This whole scenario is just kind of shitty, if you ask me. We should all be so hyped to have so many active, talented female rappers out right now, and the fact that these two are beefing and not supporting each other is not helping either of them. My opinion of Azealia is also tainted by the fact that she has fired shots at other lady artists too: Kreayshawn retweeted a link to one of Azealia's videos that had originally been tweeted by PornHub (which, considering the fact that for much of the song, Azealia is chanting "I guess that cunt gettin eatin" is not really so far fetched), and she WENT OFF, saying "You're a dumb bitch. And you can't rap. I'll sit on your face. ... Fall back slut." YIKES. Kreayshawn wrote back: "I've been listening to your music all month" and "Did I just get smashed on twitter because I was supporting a fellow female? I sure did... *confused*" Azealia ALSO said some not-so-nice things about Nicki Minaj! I don't even like Nicki Minaj but at this point I'm starting to think that Azealia is just a big bully.

The best thing any of these ladies can do now is put their money where their mouth is (ignore the grammar, you get the sentiment). Azealia needs to put out a really incredible record, or even just a decent mixtape if she wants to prove some kind of point. She just put out a song called "Fuck Up The Fun" over a Diplo beat (which sounds like something from the Major Lazer cutting room floor, I hate to say), but honestly it's pretty much just rapid fire curse and n words, and threats, and more subtle shots at Iggy at the end. She only has a few songs out, no mixtape, and only two proper Youtube videos. Iggy played her cards right in that respect – she put out the video for "Pu$$y," got some good buzz going, dropped the mixtape and followed up with a couple more videos. And whether or not you like her music, those videos are good.
All in all, I wish these two would just... get along. And I wish all female rappers would get along. Maybe it's a pipe dream, but either way, tweet beef is not a good look, so my advice to these ladies is to either drop it or take it offline, 'cause the internet never forgets.*Among the artists who have turned down a spot in the Freshman Class are Drake, Nicki Minaj, and A$AP Rocky, and they seem to be doing just fine. They also don't seem to have a consistent track record with their picks – some of the past Freshman Class artists would up being essentially one hit/mixtape wonders.this is for the ladies @toomanyronis

8 comments:

A great write-up, it sheds a lot of light on the careers of these two up-and-comers. I don't so much mind two women having beef, that seems normal because I've heard haterade tastes great and shade is lovely. The thing that gets me is that one of these women has multiple singles, a killer mixtape, several videos, industry recognition and multiple business ventures...and the other is a squabbling chickenhead. Come on ladies, let's clean this up and move on. At least they're age-appropriate though (I'm looking at you, Kim and Nicki).

Damn homie, I have been out of the loop and thank god you're here to catch me up! I cannot dig the music Ms. Banks makes nor can I endorse Iggy's tweet habit, but digging her rhymes & beats that's fore sure. You hit the nail on the head with this though: "We should all be so hyped to have so many active, talented female rappers out right now..."